Help corals dying….

[KBnewbie]

I have a Red Sea 109 gallon peninsula tank that has been running for almost 2 years. I have testing automated and my numbers are stable and what I think is in spec expect for my salt being low. My salinity stays around 33.6 ppt. I have been trying to get it up. Mushrooms of course doing fine but everything else shrinks up and dies and Euphyllia just bails out after month or 2. I do have some coralline algae starting to grow. Here are my numbers. I’m running a Red Sea light program but backed down to 40% blue and 10% white but par was measuring good. Standard program is 100% and 50% but with everything shrinking and dying I thought it was too high. Any ideas would be appreciated. Thanks

 

[Dragen Fiend]

If your parameter's are stable and no swings. Its either light or a flow issue. Usually for pylop bailout. They are unhappy in that spot and try to move to survive. Can you attach pictures?

 

[Lavey29]

Phosphate is low. What are your par numbers?

 

[KBnewbie]

I had a malfunction with my roller mat and my nitrates and phosphates were extremely high for awhile. I’m running gfo and nopox which got them down. What should I shoot for? I can stop running those now. I tried moving them and that didn’t seem to work.

 

[Lavey29]

I had a malfunction with my roller mat and my nitrates and phosphates were extremely high for awhile. I’m running gfo and nopox which got them down. What should I shoot for? I can stop running those now. I tried moving them and that didn’t seem to work.

Phosphate. 05 to .15. Nitrates 10 to 20 for a mixed reef tank. These are general numbers. Each tank is unique.

 

[AmateurAlchemist]

Which Red Sea light are you running? They’re surprisingly capable so jumping to 100% is unlikely to be helping.

What are you doing for flow? Too much flow is my first thought given the info provided.

 

[KBnewbie]

I’m using 2 Red Sea 160s. I had my back wall light at 70% blue and 35% white. My front light is at 40% blue and 10% white. I now have them both at 40/10. I was trying to do acros in the back lps in the front and mushrooms around the bottom. My par at 40/10 is 50 at the bottom and around 125 at the top of rock. I have 2 reef wave 45s on the back wall vertical running at 70%.

 

[KBnewbie]

Here is what they looked like for about a month.

 

[KBnewbie]

Here they are now, almost all bailed out. Doesn’t look like brown jelly either just bail out

 

[Lavey29]

I’m using 2 Red Sea 160s. I had my back wall light at 70% blue and 35% white. My front light is at 40% blue and 10% white. I now have them both at 40/10. I was trying to do acros in the back lps in the front and mushrooms around the bottom. My par at 40/10 is 50 at the bottom and around 125 at the top of rock. I have 2 reef wave 45s on the back wall vertical running at 70%.

Thats to low par and I'm guessing to high flow but would need to see a video.

 

[AmateurAlchemist]

I’m using 2 Red Sea 160s. I had my back wall light at 70% blue and 35% white. My front light is at 40% blue and 10% white. I now have them both at 40/10. I was trying to do acros in the back lps in the front and mushrooms around the bottom. My par at 40/10 is 50 at the bottom and around 125 at the top of rock. I have 2 reef wave 45s on the back wall vertical running at 70%.

2 x 160s at 100% over a ~4ft tank will cremate just about any LPS. 50-125 PAR is a much more reasonable range. You may even have to acclimate more sensitive LPS on the sand bed and work up.

2 x Reefwave 45s at 70% is almost certainly way too much flow. I struggled to run 2 x 25s on a 4ft tank without blowing the flesh off LPS. Bear in mind hammers, torches and frogspawn like gently swaying in the breeze.

 

[Lavey29]

I’m using 2 Red Sea 160s. I had my back wall light at 70% blue and 35% white. My front light is at 40% blue and 10% white. I now have them both at 40/10. I was trying to do acros in the back lps in the front and mushrooms around the bottom. My par at 40/10 is 50 at the bottom and around 125 at the top of rock. I have 2 reef wave 45s on the back wall vertical running at 70%.

Did you check this with a parameter? Your tank looks dark in the pics.

 

[Lavey29]

2 x 160s at 100% over a ~4ft tank will cremate just about any LPS. 50-125 PAR is a much more reasonable range. You may even have to acclimate more sensitive LPS on the sand bed and work up.

2 x Reefwave 45s at 70% is almost certainly way too much flow. I struggled to run 2 x 25s on a 4ft tank without blowing the flesh off LPS. Bear in mind hammers, torches and frogspawn like gently swaying in the breeze.

My LPS sit in 125 to 250 par and thrive but I agree with your post about 100% lights and to much flow.

 

[KBnewbie]

I have a par meter. I can check again but it was late in the evening when those were taken. Not at peak. I also had my return pump power cord go bad so I actually bought another pump and had it over nighted. I was running a 7000 now I’m running an 8000 but at 70%. Kept the 7000 as backup. Don’t know if that changes the flow or not but I’m getting plenty of surface movement. Maybe it’s just a lot more flow than I thought.